Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? While i can only answer personally the reasons are a large number of. Coming from a low-country town in Carolina, I can still very well remember the sweet and pungent aromas of the tobacco auction season and the myriad sights and sounds that accompanied the auctioneer and buyers as they walked among the beautiful rows of golden leaves.
Due to my age, I can also recall sitting in the company of many others because they instructed me in to select many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was used for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very soon afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle belonging to the auction season still lingers with me as Think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on the curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture throughout the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the land. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked within a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then changed to a twist for drying. Back then chewing tobacco was either a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when We were grown, I was confronted with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some others. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and professional compensation of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a range of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with the older ways seem better, but it seems that in now having so many options among cigarettes today, much of the flavor and aroma has left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity although hand rolled a smoke from one of the many over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that inevitably leave you with a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule start.
However, after a moment of exploration on the internet I soon found presently there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine using a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment of an injector, some filter tubes and a wide choice of blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we had been both thrilled with our purchases and what we have since experienced. Now, the house no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, brand new blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, currently has both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that but today smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is no longer that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, as we now experiment with this blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is the light blend, but sometimes there’s the enjoyment of a wonderful Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and tips times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible selection of styles. Sometimes a thin, rolled smoke, other times a thicker injected smoke, with NO additives.
When we once tried the premium brand of pre-made commercial cigarettes, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and terrific, right ? too familiar stench up. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170